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Pope Benedict XIV on State Coercion of Heretics

Translator’s Note: Pope Benedict XIV, Prospero Lambertini, was one of the great men of the eighteenth century and one of the most learned ever to sit on St. Peter’s throne. The following is taken from his work De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione, which “served as the rule of the Sacred Congregation of Rites for almost two centuries” (John Paul II, Divinus perfectionis Magister). 

De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione III, xvii, 13

A different judgment is to be given concerning heretics or schismatics, for the agreed opinion of the Fathers and theologians is that after initial efforts, i.e. careful, mild and appropriate methods to dissuade them from error, have all been made to no avail, they can at length be compelled to the faith by threats and terrors, and if they are obstinate they can finally be punished by death by calling in the assistance of the secular arm. For instance, St. Augustine1 was once of the opinion that heretics were not to be coerced to the faith and to unity: “At first my opinion was that no one was to be coerced to the unity of Christ but rather to be driven by words, fought by argument, conquered by reason, lest we have as pretended Catholics those whom we had known as open heretics.” But he abandoned this opinion once he had been taught by experience and by the examples of his city, which, since it had gone over entirely to the Donatist sect, was converted to Catholic unity by fear of the imperial laws. The holy Doctor adds2 that fear of the laws opened their eyes to truth, since many remained in error either because they had been born in it or out of human respect or habit or negligence: “The fear of these laws, by promulgating which kings serve the Lord in reverence, so availed all of them that now some say, ‘We already desired this, but thanks be to God, Who has now offered us the chance to do it and has cut off the delays of hesitation.” Other quotations of St. Augustine are referred to by Gratian.3 Furthermore, Lamindus Pritanius4 vindicates the holy Doctor from the calumnies of Phereponus5 and shows in his learned way that Augustine was unjustly slandered by him as a Proteus6 because he changed his opinion regarding the persecution of heretics: “Augustine acknowledges below that he was previously of the opinion that heretics are not to be influenced by any temporal harassment but that he later changed his mind, because both experience and solid argument had persuaded him that this way of acting was not only just but useful and sometimes necessary besides.” St. Thomas follows St. Augustine.7 After he has taught that infidels, who have never accepted the faith, are not to be compelled to believe, he adds: “There are other infidels who at some point have received the faith and profess it, such as heretics and all8 apostates, and these are to be compelled even bodily to fulfill what they have promised and to maintain what they once received.” He gives the reason that “just as to make a vow belongs to the will but to fulfill it belongs to necessity, so to receive the faith belongs to the will but to hold it once received belongs to necessity. Therefore heretics are to be compelled to hold the faith.”9 Soto,10 Cardinal di Lauria11 and Cardinal Gotti12 expound his doctrine extensively, and Natalis Alexander follows him with ecclesiastical erudition gathered from every quarter. He shows at length that the Church justly handed the Albigensian heretics over to the secular power to be punished with temporal penalties.13 Nor can it be omitted that Calvin himself by his words and deeds abundantly proved that heretics are to be coerced by the ius gladii. His words are quoted by Natalis Alexander,14 and his deeds are preserved by Cardinal Gotti.15 For in fact he denounced Servetus, who was reviving the error of Arius, to the Genevan magistracy, and he succeeded in having him burned alive. And when among those who styled themselves Reformers a controversy arose as to whether heretics should be punished by the death penalty, Sebastian Castellio and Socinus denied it but Calvin affirmed, and the other co-ministers adhered to his view. Then, because Castellio, under the name Martin Bellius, wanted to patronize the cause of heretics, Calvin, who at that time was writing on Genesis, commissioned Theodore Beza to respond, which he in turn did in his On the Punishment of Heretics by the Magistracy. 

  1. Ep. 93 to Vincentius, ch. 5. ↩︎
  2. Ibid., ch. 18.  ↩︎
  3. Canon Displicet and following, C. 23 q. 4 c. 38. ↩︎
  4. De ingeniorum moderatione in religionis negotio II, 9. Lamindus Pritanius was the penname of the renowned scholar Muratori. ↩︎
  5. This was the penname of Jean Le Clerc. ↩︎
  6. That is, a shape-shifter. ↩︎
  7. ST II-II q. 10 a. 8. ↩︎
  8. Reading quicumque for quandoque. ↩︎
  9. ST II-II q. 10 a. 8. ad 3.  ↩︎
  10. In quartum Sententiarum commentarii, dist. 5, qu. 1, art. 10. ↩︎
  11. Commentaria in tertium librum Sententiarum Ioannis Duns Scoti, part 2, tom. 3, disp. 15, art. 1. ↩︎
  12. Theologia scholastico-dogmatica, tom. 10, qu. 4, dub. 2, §1. ↩︎
  13. Historia ecclesiastica, tom. 8, diss. 3, art. 1. ↩︎
  14. Loc. cit., no. 10.  ↩︎
  15. Vera ecclesia Christi, tom. 1, ch. 3, §5, no. 18. ↩︎
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Happiness as the Principle of Ethics, Law, and Rights

An earlier version of this paper was read at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Faculty of Law, Department for Roman Law, Budapest, February 21st, 2025. My thanks to Professor Nadja El Beheiri, Chair of the Department of Roman Law, for the invitation. A pdf can be found here.

Introduction

Happiness ought to be the last end and first principle of ethics, law, and rights. By happiness, I mean here the reality pointed to by Aristotle with the term eudaimonia. I will largely be relying on Aristotle, and on his greatest medieval interpreter and developer, Thomas Aquinas, to establish my thesis. But my aim is not primarily to establish what those thinkers thought, but rather to understand the reality about which they were thinking. Nevertheless, I will attend to the ways in which the reality grasped by Aristotle in the concept eudaimonia is different from that often referred to in modern times by such words as “happiness.” I will begin (1) by looking at the Aristotelian conception of eudaimonia, paying particular attention to two features of it that contrast it with the way that happiness is often conceived of in modern discourse: (1.1) Happiness is an objective state of a human being, and (1.2) happiness is a common good. Next (2), I will consider how happiness is the principle of law (2.1) and rights (2.2). 

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Book Review: Something for Nothing?

David Hunt, Something for Nothing?: An Explanation and Defence of the Scholastic Position on Usury  (Os Justi Press, 2024).

It is a relief that this book exists. For several years, interest in the Church’s teaching on usury has been growing for two obvious reasons. The first is that the Church no longer seems to condemn usury – perhaps it did, and perhaps it never recanted its previous statements, but it no longer actively condemns lending at interest. This would make it seem that the Church can change her teachings on some things, including things that, in the past, she had forbidden without exception. This prospect causes excitement among progressives and consternation among conservatives, the latter of whom are anxious to show that the Church’s teaching has not changed. In so doing, they often resort to a kind of magisterial triumphalism, showcasing the authoritative statements that the Church has issued and appealing to the lack of any rescinding of these statements to show that the Church’s teaching remains intact. This approach is less than impressive because – and here lies the second reason why interest in usury has been growing – it seems that, whatever the Church taught in the past, her teaching is simply no longer applicable today. Perhaps the nature of money has changed; or maybe the divines of the past did not understand the time value of money; or they paid insufficient attention to the risks that lenders assume, for which they should be justly compensated; or maybe the nature of the market today allows for the calculation of a just price for being deprived of the use of money for a given time. At the very least, it is often argued, interest could be charged on a loan to compensate a borrower for the corrosive effects that inflation has had on the value of the money he lent.

None of these arguments work. Their failure is apparent to anyone who is familiar with and understands the logic of the arguments against usury that were made by the ancient philosophers, medieval theologians, and the authors of later magisterial documents. For years, the only way for someone interested in this topic to understand the Church’s teaching on usury was to undertake the tall task of becoming familiar with all of this literature. The only comprehensive book on the subject was John T. Noonan’s The Scholastic Analysis of Usury, which is thorough and helpful as a historical resource, but which draws specious conclusions about magisterial teaching and its application. Furthermore, that it was published in 1957 and is still frequently cited in discussions of usury speaks volumes about the dearth of helpful literature on this subject. This is the lacuna that David Hunt’s Something for Nothing?: An Explanation and Defense of the Scholastic Position on Usury aims to fill, and succeeds in so doing.

Hunt’s defense of the traditional prohibition of lending at interest follows the logic that is familiar to anyone who has delved into this question at all: to charge interest on a loan is to charge both for the money lent and for the use thereof, which is inherently unjust. This position is easily defended, but objections are just as easily raised. In its defense, Hunt draws the classic distinction from Roman law between consumables and non-consumables (16ff). To own something entails having the right to destroy it. Some things, like wine, are consumed – that is, destroyed – in their use. Regarding such things, to have the right to use them is inseparable from having the right to dispose of them, which is therefore inseparable from owning them. One cannot, therefore, lend wine qua wine. 

Imagine the scenario: I invite some friends over for dinner, but I realize that I have no wine. So, I go to a wine store and – for some reason – decide to rent a bottle instead of buying one. I serve the wine at dinner, after which it is simply gone. So, when I go back to the wine store, not only do I owe the store a fee for renting the wine, but I also owe them a new bottle of wine, as the old one no longer exists. So, I have to pay for the wine and for the use of the wine. This would not be the case if, for example, I had rented a lawn mower, because in that scenario, I’d still have a lawn mower after having used it. I can pay for the use of the lawn mower without also having to pay for the lawn mower. Such examples as these illustrate the absurdity of renting consumables, which is what usurious loans attempt to do. 

But the logic goes further. Ultimately, Hunt argues, demanding interest on a loan amounts to a kind of slavery. A loan – a mutuum, to be precise – is a kind of arrangement where one person lends money to another, and this becomes usurious when the lender demands back more than what he had lent, charging the borrower both for the money borrowed and for the use thereof. In this case, the only thing guaranteeing the interest payment is the borrower himself. Thus, the lender profits off of the borrower. As Hunt eloquently puts it (72): 

The profit is derived from the personal guarantee, and the personal guarantee is recourse to the borrower himself. Therefore, to profit on a mutuum is to profit from a person. Now, it is self-evident that one can profit only from the use of one’s own property. If this were not the case, the ludicrous result would follow that one could, for one’s own gain, dispose of property owned exclusively by another person. Therefore, in profiting from a person, the lender is treating the person as his property.

Here, for Hunt, lies the essence of the injustice of usury. Usurious loans are based on a personal guarantee, not on an asset used as collateral, which distinguishes a usurious mutuum from other financial arrangements that involve lending money, some of which are justifiable. Though not unique to Hunt, this distinction between loans that are guaranteed by a person and those that are based on an asset is not stated in quite such explicit terms by Aquinas. It is, however, a helpful way of rendering what Aquinas does say and, Hunt argues, has magisterial backing (64). This distinction allows Hunt to argue that there are other kinds of profitable loans that are non-usurious and to answer objections that are commonly raised to the traditional prohibition on usury.

As an example – of which Hunt provides more – of profitable, non-usurious lending, Hunt describes the census contract. This occurs when a lender provides a borrower with a principal sum, collects payments on that sum for a specified period of time, and then is returned the principal sum at the term of the contract. This is not a mutuum and not usurious if the contract is based upon some asset, such as a field. A farmer can borrow money from a lender and, in exchange, give the lender some portion of the proceeds of his field for a certain period of time, after which he returns the money. Effectively, the lender is buying rights to proceeds from the field, and the field is put up as collateral on the principal lent. If the field fails to produce, the lender cannot demand payment from the borrower. Therefore, the lender is not treating the borrower as property, nor is he charging for something that does not exist.

This example helps to clarify the common objections, noted above, that are raised today against the traditional prohibition on usury. In answering each of these objections, Hunt artfully pivots between modern language and scholastic language, showing that something like “opportunity cost” (which Hunt equates with “lucrum cessans”) and the “time value of money” were not discoveries of the modern period that rendered the traditional prohibition on usury obsolete, but were concepts that people like Aquinas were very much aware of, whence simply appealing to them does not constitute sufficient grounds for overlooking past prohibitions on usury.

Consider the objection that risk-taking justifies the charging of interest. Hunt argues that the proper way to deal with risk is to enact an insurance contract. Insurance contracts are based on real assets which can be sold and converted into cash to cover a loss. If a lender, however, simply demands to be paid for assuming a risk without reference to any collateral, then this demand “amounts to the mere promise of the guarantor … to repay the loan with interest, which precisely is usury” (51). Hunt notes that a similar problem arises when appeals are made to inflation, the time value of money, and opportunity cost. In each case, the borrower is demanding payment for something that does not exist and expects the borrower to guarantee payment anyway. In the case of inflation, Hunt argues that demanding payment for loss incurred is implicitly to argue that the same quantity of money must always purchase the same quantity of the same kind of goods (53), which is clearly false. Furthermore, since money is a medium of exchange, its value cannot be determined by goods for which it can be exchanged in a non-arbitrary way – should the borrower owe more money on the inflated price of cars, or less money on the deflated price of electronics? In countering these objections, Hunt shows himself to be thoroughly familiar with modern thought, which sees the charging of interest as clearly justified, and medieval thought, which holds the opposite. What the reader gets is not just a quaestio disputata on usury, but an insightful treatment of financial practices rooted in a sound monetary theory that raises many other important questions.

What Hunt provides in his new book is cogent argumentation in defense of the traditional prohibition on interest-bearing loans; equally cogent argumentation against common objections to the traditional prohibition on usury that is attentive to both modern and medieval mindsets; and helpful examples – again both medieval and modern – of profitable lending that does constitute usury (like an auto loan) or does not constitute usury (like collecting interest on a government bond). He further provides a helpful analysis for determining whether a given transaction is usurious or not, which should help assuage the anxiety of those whose consciences torment them on this issue. Now that this book has been published, what the world needs is a deeper analysis of current financial practices, identifying which ones are licit and which ones are not, so that steps can be taken to render modern economic practices more just.

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Ordo Amoris: Love Has an Order, Not All Are Loved Equally

Does Christian love require that we love all people equally? Some say yes. They imagine love as a boundless sea, flowing in all directions, touching every shore equally. There is something true about that. God’s love is infinite and there is nothing in creation that is not touched by it. That is perhaps an accurate image of Divine Love as certain pre-Christian thinkers might frame it. But this is not love as it is revealed to us in Sacred Scripture. It is not the way of things from the Judeo-Christian perspective. In addition to this general love, there is also a particular and special love and this love has an order. It follows a path. It is structured and intentional, like a river carving its way through the land.

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The Josias Podcast Episode XLVII: Relics

Our hosts, Fr. Jon Tveit and Amanda, are joined by Fr. Justin Cinnante, O.Carm., for a conversation about relics, their power and significance, and the full story of how Fr. Justin came to bless and present President Donald Trump with a relic of the True Cross.

Fr. Justin is a Carmelite priest and serves as the Chaplain at Iona Preparatory High School.

Header Image: Titian, The Vendramin Family Venerating a Relic of the True Cross (1540s)

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Divisio Textus of Leo XIII’s Libertas Praestantissimum

Proemium (§§1-2): The purpose of the encyclical is to refute the charge that the Church is against human liberty, by showing the true nature of liberty, and by distinguishing what is good from what is bad in so-called “modern liberties.”

Tractatus (§§3-46):

I. The nature of liberty (§§3-6): the distinction between natural and moral liberty.

  1. Natural liberty (§§3-5): Natural liberty is free will, rooted in the spiritual power of reason (§3). The Catholic Church has always defended natural liberty against fatalism (§4). Natural liberty is the faculty of choosing among means to the final end. It chooses everything under the aspect of good and is dependent on the intellect’s recognition of the good (§5).
  2. Moral liberty (§6): Just as reason can err about the truth, the will can err about the good, choosing something contrary to right reason. Moral liberty is the freedom from such error. Sin is slavery, because it means acting against right reason, which is our nature. The sinner cannot therefore act without impediment in the way natural to him. Moral liberty is granted by training “in justice and virtue,” because this enables us to act easily in accordance with right reason.

II. Helps to attaining moral liberty (§§ 7-13): We need light and strength to attain moral liberty. 

  1. Law is the first help to moral liberty. Law teaches what is in accordance with right reason and trains us to live in accordance with it by reward and punishment (§7).
    • Natural law is our reason commanding us to do right and avoid evil. It has the force of law because it interprets the eternal law of God for us (§8).
      • God’s grace strengthens us inwardly so that we can obey the law (§8).
    • Civil law helps the political community to be morally free, directing it to the true common good. Some of its precepts are direct applications of the natural law, others are more remote applications. The liberty of human society consists in all being led by the injunctions of civil law to conform more easily to eternal law (§§9-11).
  2. The Church aids us in attaining moral liberty by her teaching and influence (§12). Moreover, her witness to the higher authority of God is an effectual barrier against the tyranny of the state (§13).

III. What is bad and what is good in so called “Modern liberties” (§§14-46):

  1. The doctrine of [hard] Liberalism (§15): Hard Liberalism teaches the supremacy of human reason. Human reason determines what is good and evil, without reference to God’s eternal law. The state is seen as deriving its authority from the people rather than God. The results of liberalism (§16) are that the true distinction between good and evil is lost, disordered passion runs riot, religion is despised, and socialists and anarchists are encouraged to revolution.
  2. The doctrine of [soft] Liberalism (§17): Soft liberals hold that human reason is not absolutely supreme. Man is bound by God’s eternal law, but only insofar as it is promulgated to his reason as natural law. Even softer liberals (§18) hold that while individuals are bound by revealed law, politics can only be guided by natural law. Hence they teach the fatal theory of Separation of Church and State.
  3. The various “modern liberties” promoted by liberalism (§§19-46):
    • Liberty of Worship (§§19-22) for individuals as for states is contrary to the virtue of religion and harmful to the true liberty of rulers and subjects.
    • Liberty of speech and of the press (§23) and liberty of teaching (§§24-29) are dangerous, because they are indifferent to the distinction between truth and falsehood and are contrary to the public duty of defending both natural and revealed truth.
    • Liberty of conscience (§§30-42) is good if understood as liberty to obey God, but bad if understood as liberty to obey or not obey him as they will. The liberals, while pretending to support liberty of conscience, actually persecute the Church, which they see as a barrier to the omnipotence of the liberal state. The Church, mindful of human weakness, does allow the state to tolerate certain evils for the sake of averting worse evils or preserving some good, but this does not concede that man has a right to do evil.
    • Political liberty (§§43-46) is good if it means lawful change of government to remove unjust oppression. The Church does not oppose democratic government or independence from foreign powers.

Exhortation, prayer, and blessing (§47): Pope Leo hopes that the bishops will help him spread the teaching of this encyclical, and prays to God that he will give his light to men, so that they will understand his wisdom. He ends with the Apostolic benediction.

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Book Review: Invisible Doctrine

George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison, Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (New York: Crown, 2024).

From the advent of the Nixon Coalition of 1968 to the Trump election of 2016, the Republican Party had three key planks in its platform. The first is strong military defense spending, coupled with the claim of being the party of the “patriot” or the “real American.” The second is a social conservativism with policies largely in line with Catholic and Evangelical morality. The last plank is what has been called fiscal conservativism by its friends and neoliberalism by its enemies. In their recent book, Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism, Guardian columnist George Monbiot and filmmaker Peter Hutchison take aim at this third plank of the contemporary American Republican Party.

Monbiot’s and Hutchison’s premise is that neoliberalism is the dominant Weltanschauung of the 21st century. And while everyone (or nearly everyone) frames their own personal worldview in neoliberal terms, it is, as the title of their book suggests, an invisible power. According to Monbiot and Hutchison, those on the right who call Kamala Harris, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama or any other progressive figure a communist or Marxist are only fooling themselves, for Kamala Harris, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama are neoliberals. Those who, in turn, call Donald Trump, George W. Bush, or Steve Bannon fascists or Nazis are, in the view of Monbiot and Hutchison, also fooling themselves, for Donald Trump, George W. Bush, and Steve Bannon are neoliberals as well. Neoliberalism, according to the authors, is today economics simply considered. 

Neoliberalism has, in the authors’ view, eroded politics by replacing citizens with consumers. It has granted increasing liberty to the 1% to exploit the 99%, whose free speech and right to organize are curtailed by neoliberal legislators. It is further responsible for the sense of isolation and the rise of mental illness and suicide among Westerners, for neoliberalism allegedly teaches a philosophy of individualism and cutthroat, Hobbesian competition. 

Monbiot’s and Hutchison’s history of neoliberalism has a number of parallels to that of Naomi Klein’s 2007 The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. These authors’ twist is, however, to locate capitalism’s origins in the Portuguese colonization of Madeira. When the Portuguese arrived at the island of Madeira in the 1420s, it was largely uninhabited. As a result, the Portuguese were free to strip the island of its resources (namely lumber) and to utilize the land for farming and livestock. Monbiot and Hutchison see these events as the birth of a pure capitalism in which the previous social ties and moral structure of feudalism were abandoned for an entirely deracinated economic system. This rather reactionary argument is carried through the book to demonstrate that capitalism and neoliberalism have a fundamentally destructive and exploitative character. They feed off resources until exhaustion, alienating and exploiting workers, who are themselves mere resources or tools for the capitalist system. 

Like others before them, Monbiot and Hutchison see John Locke as one of the most important early theorists of capitalism. Locke argued that the world was originally a blank slate and that ownership is achieved through one’s labor on land. This, according to the authors, creates a vision of the world (and even the universe) as merely “standing reserve” or raw material for exploitation and use. No longer are human communities based on ethnic, cultural, and religious ties. No longer are peoples rooted in the land and part of a living history. Now, it is every man or woman for him- or herself in the great race to make money from the exploitation of labor and land. 

One of the book’s strong points is its criticism of certain left-wing movements. Invisible Doctrine takes to task the notion that individual recycling has a profound benefit for the environment. The authors note that the 1970 “Keep America Beautiful” recycling campaign was “pure Astroturf” and was funded largely by corporations that wanted to shift the blame for pollution to consumers. Monbiot and Hutchison further note the irony that the reusable grocery bags meant to reduce plastic consumption are themselves enormous drains on the environment. The authors also, like their conservative rivals, call out left-wing billionaires who chide common people for their waste but themselves consume enormous amounts of energy, making special note of Bill Gates’s travel carbon footprint. 

Like a host of other recent progressive books, Invisible Doctrine proposes saving humanity and the world by rewiring the human person. While neoliberalism (and many on the right) see humans as naturally competitive and aggressive, Invisible Doctrine proposes a renewed vision of humans as naturally social, cooperative, and empathetic. Monbiot and Hutchison also believe that getting a certain number of people to reject neoliberalism will have a viral effect and that people can be converted to the authors’ vision of an internationalist, eco-friendly socialism. 

There are a number of points in the book with which readers of a variety of political stripes would disagree. Monbiot and Hutchison have a special animus against Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson, and other populist politicians. Whatever legitimate criticisms the authors have of these populists, it is difficult to label them as neoliberals without qualification. In fact, Donald Trump is widely opposed by neoliberals in the Republican Party, and the “never-Trump” movement is largely a movement of neoliberals. Moreover, while Monbiot and Hutchison are right to argue against blaming migrants as the root cause of problems in the West, they, like many progressives, gloss over the importance of ethnic community and culture. The authors’ vision of a global village itself sounds a lot like a communitarian version of the deracinated individualism of neoliberalism. Nonetheless, Invisible Doctrine provides a trenchant critique of the excesses of certain types of capitalism and is worth a read.  

There is a popular scenario that, prior to the stock market/housing crash of 2008 and the more recent calls for populist economics, was common in conservative (especially academic) discourse. In this scenario, a progressive professor or writer flies to a major city on a commercial jet, is picked up at the airport by an (often luxury) automobile, is driven to a (luxury) hotel or conference center that is heated and cooled with tremendous expenditure of energy. After consuming food that was flown in from all over of the world and drinking water and coffee that themselves were transported via a complex logistical process, the aforementioned progressive professor denounces capitalism, (post-) modernity, carbon use, plastics, (neo-) colonialism, and the growing divide between rich and poor around the world. In the back of the conference room, a few neoliberal business professors chuckle to themselves at the irony. 

But the chuckling neoliberal professors are a bit unfair. Margaret Thatcher is still right, “there is no alternative” to neoliberalism. Liberal capitalism (increasingly, a neo-feudal technocracy) is the only game in town. In fact, as Mark Fisher and Slavoj Zizek have noted, it is difficult to imagine anything but capitalism in the 21st century; it is easier to envision the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Barring an apocalyptic catastrophe, the rise of some global fascist or communist military dictatorship, or a literal act of God, neoliberalism will continue to run its course until exhaustion. 

Jesse Russell is an assistant professor of English at Georgia Southwestern State University. He is a senior writer with Voegelin View and writes for a number of publications including The European Conservative, Catholic World Report, and The New Criterion.

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The Josias Podcast Episode XLVI: Memento mori

In this month of November, dedicated to the holy souls in Purgatory, our hosts, Amanda and Fr. Jon Tveit, are joined by Fr. Michael Barone, for a conversation about death, the importance of the funeral rite, cremation, and how today’s culture seeks to keep distant our own mortality. Fr. Barone serves as a Cemetery Chaplain in the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey.

Bibliography:

Header Image: Henryk Pillati, Funeral of the Five Victims of the Manifestation of 1861 in Warsaw (1865)

If you have questions or comments, please send them to editors(at)thejosias.com.

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The Josias Podcast Episode XLV: Catholic Land Movement

Our Editor, Fr. Jon Tveit, is joined on the podcast by Michael Thomas—the motivating force behind the new Catholic Land Movement—for a conversation about the Catholic Land Movement’s inspiration, purpose, and how puts that into practice.

You may follow Michael Thomas on (the website formerly known as) Twitter, @MichaelTG09.

Bibliography

Header Image: Eastman Johnson, Husking Bee, Island of Nantucket (1876)

If you have questions or comments, please send them to editors(at)thejosias.com.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Many thanks to our generous supporters on Patreon, who enable us to pay for podcast hosting. If you have not yet joined them, please do so. You can set up a one-time or recurring donation in any amount. Even $1 a month would be splendid.

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Against Christian Nationalism: A Catholic Response to Stephen Wolfe

“They call themselves Christian Nationalists if they’re Evangelicals. Integralists or Postliberals if they’re Catholic.” So says one commentator. But the truth is quite otherwise.

While the idea of Christian Nationalism in many ways resembles the Catholic vision of politics, the two are essentially opposed. In short, while Catholic integralism proposes a subordination of the State to the Church, Christian Nationalism entails a subordination of the Church to the State. And so, I will argue, Christian nationalism is a regression into paganism, wherein the royal power is the mediator between God and man. In contrast to nationalism, the Catholic Church offers a robust patriotism that supports the flourishing of human community, including at the national level, but also upholds the legitimacy of sub- and supra-national politics.

In short, there is no “Catholic Nationalism.”

Clarifying Terms

Let’s begin by disambiguating postliberalism and integralism. In my own presentation, I would say that one may reject one label or the other for strategic reasons, but concretely speaking they very often coincide.

Postliberalism is obviously a negative term, insofar as it places one in opposition to political liberalism, while also making it clear that we cannot simply revert to a pre-liberal era. We must push forward, working with reality as it exists, transforming society according to the ideals of the Gospel in light of the achievements of the past but also aspiring to heights not yet achieved in the history of the Church.

Integralism, on the other hand, is not only a rejection of the liberal notion of the separation of Church and State, but is also a positive vision of what God has ordained, that the State ought to be united to the Church in harmonious concord (cf. Arcanum Divinae, 36). And while the State has its own proper competence and autonomy, wherever the obligations of the Church and State coincide, the State ought to govern according to the laws of the Church. This is typically expressed by the analogy that the State is ordered toward the Church as the body toward the soul (Immortale Dei, 14).

One might come to the conclusion that Christian Nationalism is just an Evangelical Protestant version of the same ideas. From the perspective of political liberalism these movements are basically indistinguishable, since they all threaten the bedrock principle of liberalism: the primacy of individual autonomy, especially in matters of religion.

Stephen Wolfe, for instance, writes in The Case for Christian Nationalism, “If civil government ought to direct its people to true religion, then it ought to direct them to the Christian religion, for that is the true religion” (p. 185). This is almost a verbatim repetition of the Catholic position as articulated by Pope Leo XIII: “Since the profession of one religion is necessary in the State, that religion must be professed which alone is true” (Libertas, 21).

Wolfe’s work is, in many ways, laudable and offers a helpful critique of liberalism in this Protestant majority nation. Though my objections are many and great, it should not obscure the value of what he has accomplished. In The Case for Christian Nationalism he offers an excellent defense of cultural Christianity, not unlike what has been offered by Ahmari, Pappin, and Pecknold. He is also quite correct to talk about the courage that must be cultivated to effectively bring the Church into the public square. Christian Nationalists and integralists may be united in our opposition to certain common opponents, but we cannot overlook the fundamental differences that divide us.

The Prince and The Pope

Once we look at the positive proposals of each approach, we see they are not just slightly different. They are totally opposed. Yes, both reject the liberal ordering of Church and State, but they have mutually exclusive understandings of their proper ordering. And this difference, not surprisingly, stems from incompatible views of the Church as such.

In short, while Catholic integralism understands the State as hierarchically subordinated to the Church, Christian Nationalism proposes the opposite, namely, a Church that is subject to the authority of the State, though the Christian Nationalists might not articulate it quite so starkly. But let’s consider the arguments that Stephen Wolfe puts forward.

His strident anti-Catholicism prevents him from being able to accept a highly institutionalized vision of the Church, or even of a truly global Christian community. He says, for example, “The instituted church, to be clear, is not a supranational society or institution, as we see in the Roman church.” Rather, he claims, it subsists essentially in “local assemblies” that may grow to “national churches,” but to conceive of it as a “global organization” is not permitted (p. 303).

What he calls the “visible” or “instituted” Church, where one finds the governing body of the clergy in their pastoral function, has no coercive power. “No ecclesiastical institution wields civil-like power over itself or over its members” (p. 304). In contrast to the medieval theo-political notion of “two swords,” one temporal and one spiritual, Wolfe cites the seventeenth-century Scottish Presbyterian Samuel Rutherford, distinguishing temporal and spiritual power as “one power … coactive by the Sword, the other free, voluntary by the Word” (p. 303).

The one sword appears in clear contrast to the traditional Catholic understanding of two swords. The two swords doctrine comes from the teaching of Pope St. Gelasius I. In a letter to Emperor Anastasius I in 494, the Pope distinguished the “spiritual authority” from the “royal power.” Gelasius recognized, thereby, a distinction of competence between the Church and State. “Inasmuch as it pertains to the order of public discipline, even the bishops themselves obey your laws,” Gelasius writes to the Emperor. But “nevertheless you devoutly bow your neck to the leaders of divine matters, and from them you await the causes of your salvation, and you recognize that … you must be submitted to the order of religion rather than rule over it.”

Wolfe, in refusing to acknowledge the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff, would rob the Church of both her universality and her governing authority. Without the Pope the Church is reduced to a collection of local assemblies. For Wolfe, the only truly universal Church is the “invisible” communion of believers, and this is governed by Christ directly invisibly, without the mediation of a Supreme Pontiff. And yet the notion of a visible head of the Church and Vicar of Christ is not so much absent from Wolfe’s schema as it is simply embodied in the temporal power whom he dubs the “Christian prince.”

“Having the highest office on earth, the good prince resembles God to the people. Indeed, he is the closest image of God on earth. … The prince is a sort of national god” (p. 287). Wolfe hopes for Christian Nationalism to be a “pan-Protestant” order (p. 382), and since the Protestant denominations and hierarchies are so diffuse, he must appeal to temporal authority as the principle of unity.

For Wolfe, the Christian prince does not merely govern the members of the Church in matters of temporal concern (as Gelasius acknowledged to be legitimate), but he exercises a dogmatic authority within the Church itself:

[The Christian prince] has the power to call synods in order to resolve doctrinal conflicts and to moderate the proceedings. Following the proceedings, he can confirm or deny their theological judgments; and in confirming them, they become the settled doctrine of the land. But he considers the pastors’ doctrinal articulations as a father might look to his medically trained son for medical advice. He still retains his superiority (p. 313).

The only major distinction then between the Prince and the Pope is that the Pope exercises universal jurisdiction. For Wolfe, this is impossible. “A Protestant nation does not recognize some universal, supranational, and earthly authority that decides what it observes and when it observes it” (p. 319). And this is the failure of Christian nationalism–it is ultimately more nationalist than it is Christian.

The Return of Paganism

Very subtly, then, the spiritual common good (which is the concern of the Church) becomes subordinated to the national common good. “National uniformity in sacred ceremonies will certainly contribute to national solidarity” (p. 315). Thus, under Christian Nationalism, “one looks more to the prince for his good than even church ministers” (p. 289).

There is nothing new in Wolfe’s proposal; St. Thomas Aquinas helps us to understand that it is a purely natural impulse.

Aquinas recognized that in the pre-Christian world, religious ritual was ordered toward the common good of the people as a temporal society (cf. Summa Theologiae I-II, 99.4). To use Wolfe’s terms, religion was good for “national solidarity.” And so, naturally, the care of religion was committed to the temporal power, that is to say, the Prince. This was true even among the Jewish people and their God-given structures of governance. But this was only because, prior to the coming of Christ, man’s eternal destiny had not yet been revealed. We did not yet know our eternal telos or how to achieve it.

Wolfe remains clear that the Gospel does not fundamentally transform natural religion, such as was practiced prior to Christ. “Prior to revealed religion, civil government ought to have directed people in natural religion,” and this, apparently, remains the case, since, “natural religion is not rescinded and its truths are assumed in the Christian religion” (p. 206, n.13). He will repeatedly claim, for example, that “the Gospel does not supersede, abrogate, eliminate, or fundamentally alter generic nationalism; it assumes and completes it” (p. 11).

But here, Aquinas would say that Wolfe has failed to appreciate the truly revolutionary power of the Gospel. Man’s eternal destiny and how we are to approach it have been revealed in Christ, and this “message of reconciliation” was entrusted to the Apostles, not to Caesar (2 Cor. 5:19-20). It was to Peter and the Apostles, not Pilate or Herod, that He said: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21), and “He who hears you hears me” (Luke 10:16). These men and their successors are spiritual rulers, not temporal rulers, and it is they who are to “sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt 19:28). Therefore, we must agree with St. Thomas, that in the light of the Gospel, the care of religion does not remain committed to the temporal powers.

Thus, in order that spiritual things might be distinguished from earthly things, the ministry of this kingdom has been entrusted not to earthly kings but to priests, and most of all to the chief priest, the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the Roman Pontiff. To him all the kings of the Christian People are to be subject as to our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. For those to whom pertains the care of intermediate ends should be subject to him to whom pertains the care of the ultimate end, and be directed by his rule (De Regno, ch. 15, §110).

To revert to the pre-Christian order of the subordination of the spiritual authority to the temporal power is a constant temptation. Christian Nationalism succumbs to it, but so did the Church of England when King Henry VIII declared himself Head of the Church. We see the same problem in the Caesaropapism of the Eastern Orthodox.

This is the order of an ungraced nature, and so it is entirely predictable that, as one separates from the communion of the Holy Catholic Church, a latent paganism would return. And I offer this as a sincere call to conversion for all Protestants who realize that the State, separated from the salutary effects of the Gospel, atrophies into disorder: understand that there is no Christendom without Rome.

At the end of The Case for Christian Nationalism, Wolfe offers this ultimatum: “Experience over the last decades has made evident that there are two options: Christian nationalism or pagan nationalism” (p. 381).

Not at all. Experience over millennia has made evident that there are two options: pagan nationalism or Roman Catholicism. There is no “Catholic Nationalism.” In fact, Catholicism is the only real alternative to nationalism. For God “has set down the Chair of His Vicar on earth, in this city of Rome which, from being the capital of the wonderful Roman Empire, was made by Him the capital of the whole world, because He made it the seat of a sovereignty which, since it extends beyond the confines of nations and states, embraces within itself all the peoples of the whole world” (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, 67).

As St. Thomas put it, “Because the priesthood of the gentiles and the whole worship of their gods existed merely for the acquisition of temporal goods the priests of the gentiles were very properly subject to the kings. … But in the New Law there is a higher priesthood by which men are guided to heavenly goods. Consequently, in the law of Christ, kings must be subject to priests” (De Regno, ch. 15, §111).

The impulse to subordinate the Church to the State is nothing other than a revival of paganism, and nationalism is an essential aspect of this phenomenon. Christian Nationalism, Anglicanism, Gallicanism, Caesaropapism, and even the more overtly pagan forms of post-Christian fascism bear this same mark.

Fascism is a term so overused that it has basically been emptied of all meaning, but there is a real historical phenomenon of fascism. It was articulated by Benito Mussolini in “The Doctrine of Fascism,” written in 1932. Fascism is, in short, the subordination of all things to the State. Mussolini writes: “The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative. Individuals and groups are admissible in so far as they come within the State.”

No wonder, then, that these regimes, whether claiming the name of Christian or not, find the need to turn to nationalism to provide a locus of solidarity. Fascism and ethnocentrism are the logical outworking of the project that was begun at the Protestant Reformation. In the place of Catholic Christendom we received the Peace of Westphalia’s policy of cuius regio, eius religio–in other words, the subordination of all things to the State. And Wolfe himself repeatedly admits that unity in Christ is not sufficient to establish peace (p. 199).

The Case for Catholic Patriotism

The rise of nationalism is only possible in a post-Reformation world. The dissolution of the unity of Christendom meant a re-paganization of Europe. The project of Christian Nationalism is, sadly, only a step toward the return of ethnocentric polytheism. By contrast, Christ’s true Church, as Catholic, is the principle of unity of all peoples, as Christ is the Second Adam, and thus head of a new Humanity.

In the place of nationalism, the Church offers patriotism as its authentic alternative. What is the difference? Pope St. John Paul II stated it this way: “Whereas nationalism involves recognizing and pursuing the good of one’s own nation alone, without regard for the rights of others, patriotism, on the other hand, is a love for one’s native land that accords rights to all other nations equal to those claimed for one’s own” (Memory and Identity, 67).

Pius XI put it similarly, saying that patriotism, “love for country,” becomes gravely disordered when it descends into “nationalism,” forgetting that “all men are our brothers and members of the same great human family” (Ubi Arcano, 25).

Wolfe, for his part, defines nationalism as merely “the nation acting for its national good” (p. 165). But it seems to me that his operative definition is other than this minimalist one that he nominally offers. Implicit in Wofle’s nationalism, indeed in any definition of nationalism, is the idea that a nation ought to strive for statehood or at least that “each nation ought to seek and have sufficient political and social autonomy to order and secure themselves” (p. 164). Correlated to this is the notion that multiple nations living under a single temporal ruler (as in the United Kingdom) is less than desirable and that “amicable ethnic separation” is likely preferable (p. 149).

What is a nation? It is admittedly a difficult term to define, but Wolfe doesn’t offer a formal definition or even an historical account. Instead he appeals to the term as something of which we all have a common experience. He does say that, for him “ethnicity” and “nation” are virtually synonymous, and therefore that, “no nation (properly speaking) is composed of two or more ethnicities” (p. 135). The upshot being that each group should “prefer their own people over others” (p. 149). In a footnote, Wolfe denies the label of white nationalist and says that being white is not relevant to his project (p. 172, n.3), and an apologia of the book against the accusation of kinism can be found here. I leave to the reader judgment of whether or not these defenses are convincing.

Regardless, here is where I think nationalism, in general, misses the mark and why the language of patriotism is to be preferred. I am patriotic for my home state of Oregon. But this is not in conflict with my love for California, where I have lived for over a decade. Nor is it in conflict with my love for the United States as a whole. Because patriotism refers to love of one’s homeland, it can refer to various scales of larger and smaller designations of “home.” As Chesterton said, we should even have something like patriotism for the universe itself. 

Given Wolfe’s definition of a nation/ethnic group, why should we consider America a nation and not a multinational system like the UK? After all, how do Oregon, Hawaii, Georgia, and Massachusetts all form one coherent national identity? Or how could ‘nation’ be said univocally of, say, Poland or Hungary?

For the patriot, this is not so important, because I can at once be a patriotic Oregonian and a patriotic American. Another may simultaneously be a patriotic Hungarian and European. But the nationalist, who is set on drawing rigid lines between peoples, and perhaps even enforcing those lines as borders, the question is unavoidable.

Patriotism does not face the same problem because it is a love of affection, so it need not be in conflict with other loves. Nationalism involves a necessarily conflictual and exclusivist perspective. As Wolfe says, “conflict” between nations or ethnic groups should be seen as “natural” and not the result of sin (p. 146).

From the Catholic perspective of subsidiarity, we exist in communities on many different levels ranging from the very local to the global. We ought to have a love for our “home” at each of those levels, while recognizing that some competent authority exists to direct each of them toward their common good. The nationalist fixes a monopoly of state power at one particular and arbitrary level, undermining the exercise of legitimate authority on both sub-national and supra-national levels.

While we can and should address local problems with more-empowered local authorities, we should also address global problems with proper international authorities. But instead the nationalist project has us fixated on only the “national” level, which can often be either too big or too small for the task at hand.

What, then, is a Catholic integralist response to the movement of Christian nationalism in America today? Without question, it is to love America, to pursue her flourishing, to defend her rights, including the protection of her borders. But this is in no way in conflict with the empowerment of human community at both a smaller and larger scale. Most importantly, it is a recognition that America is a temporal not a spiritual power, and thus is in no way competent to govern the Church. America, rather, must be subject to a higher power, namely, the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Christ, whose Vicar is in the eternal city of Rome.